What is language therapy?

Language therapy is a broad label for many types of therapies that a Speech Therapist can provide.  Language therapy addresses the following areas:
  • Listening Skills: How your child is able to understand what is being said to them and follow directions
  • Grammar Skills: Your child’s ability to use grammatical structures 
  • Vocabulary Skills: Your child’s knowledge of what things are called and their ability to understand those words when and recall and say the word when they need to
  • Comprehension Skills: Your child’s ability to answer and ask questions
  • Social Language Skills: Your child’s ability to use language to interact with others appropriately and follow social rules during conversation and play
  • Literacy Skills: Your child’s ability to read and write or use pre-reading skills 

How does language therapy work?

Following testing, the speech therapist will be able to say which of the above areas the child has difficulties with.  Then, she will find ways to teach each skill to the child.  Most of the time, this involves breaking the skill down into smaller steps and specifically teaching each skill to the child.  For example, if the child demonstrates difficulties with grammar skills, the Speech Therapist will determine what age appropriate skills they have and which ones they lack and start from there. This may mean the Speech Therapist will being by teaching the child pronouns (I, me, you), plurals, and present progressive (verb + -ing) or the Speech Therapist may begin at a higher level and teach the child the eight different parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections) and then from there provide opportunities for the child to practice these skills. As the child's accuracy in each skill increases, the Speech Therapist will begin to provide more challenging tasks to strengthen the child's skill. The Speech Therapist may use a variety of different techniques to help teach your child such as, visual aids, pictures, verbal reminders, etc.